Iwa ni Hana

Akio stands at the exit of the tunnel through which Utena and Anthy try to run away from the castle in the movie "The Adolescence of Utena".

I just want to do a quick post on a fanciful thought I suddenly had.

If Revolutionary Girl Utena were a novel of the Hyakkiyagyō series, I think the whole concept of “the prince” would probably be considered a youkai that is like a tsukimono (ie. a “spiritual thing that attaches itself to an individual”), which only someone like Chūzenji Akihiko can “let fall” [落とし] or exorcise.

Utena has always struck me as a story in which only one half is told (though I do not necessarily mean this in a negative way):

• It tells of adolescent development below the neck (ie. the emotional and the physical/sexual), but not so much above the neck (ie. the intellect). You see the teenage characters agonizing a lot over what goes on the below the neck, but you never see them reading a book and get hit over the head by a whole new world of ideas.
• Likewise, only the “female” side of the story is told – or at least feminist sentiments are echoed, although even then I am not sure I have enough information to draw any decisive conclusion, except that the scene in the movie where Utena and Anthy run away from the castle reminds me of a quote about atheists I once read. An atheist (I am just paraphrasing) is someone who walks away from church, but he walks away from church with his eyes fixed on the church and with his back facing towards where he is going. In other words, he cannot see where he is going. Atheism can only define itself against Christianity, whereas Christianity does not have to define itself against anything. I suppose feminism (at least as it appears in Utena) is also like that – you can walk away from “the prince,” but you walk away with your eyes fixed on the prince and with your back towards where you are going. If anything, I think it is the “male” side of the Utena story that is begging to be told – it is the male characters who are the active initiators in the story, whereas the female characters tend to be passively playing along or “acted upon.” As it is, I feel that I know about the key male characters (Akio, Touga etc) a lot less than I know about the key female characters.

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As I was saying, back at university I used to translate newspaper articles I picked in random from English into Japanese and vice versa for practice. Naturally, I encountered stumbling blocks from time to time, in which case I would turn to my language exchange partners for help. One of my partners was a girl from Kobe who was studying to be an English teacher herself, and one of the articles we worked on together was “Mozart redeems my mediocrity” from The Guardian (see here for the full article).

We beat our brains out as to how to translate the sentence “Mozart redeems my mediocrity”. In fact, my partner had not been exposed to such usage before, and was puzzled that anyone other than God can be the subject actor of the verb “redeem” when you are talking about redeeming a human being’s shortcoming (ie. mediocrity). This sentence may sound natural and native enough in English and may be intuitively understood as long as you are thinking in English. After all, we all know that Mozart is dead, and even if he were alive it is doubtful whether he would be able to redeem anyone. “Mozart redeems my mediocrity” is really a shorthand for expressing:

My recognition of the greatness of Mozart redeems my mediocrity.

In any case, our difficulty was that there was just no equivalent Japanese that would be an appropriate translation of “Mozart redeems my mediocrity”. However you translate you it, it just ends up sounding funny, nonsensical, confusing or ambiguous in Japanese. To have a subject other than God when you use the word “redeem” in Japanese just does not seem to work. At last, we agreed that translating a sentence like “Mozart redeems my mediocrity” just forces you to make your best effort to rewrite the whole sentence as something else. Probably something along the lines of:

My recognition of the greatness of Mozart makes up for my mediocrity.

If you think about it, a sentence like “God redeems me” is really a similar shorthand expression for “my humble submission to the greatness of God redeems me”. There is a lot more to be said about it, but first I would like to turn to an anecdote I once read. I have quoted it directly below:

The Welsh are great ones for possessing and continuing the past. I was just reading a few days ago an article by some Americans who had been travelling in Wales last year and who had been startled while travelling over a road and said “This is a very fine road.” Their driver who was a Welshman – this was in mountain country – said “Yes, a fine road. They designed it; we built it, and you know they never paid us for it.” They said “Well, who are they?” “The Romans.” This is not exaggerated. They still hang on onto old grievances, old feelings; they hang on to a lot of old things too. [...] This is not self conscious. It is as though you possessed all the past and you have a fairly happy consciousness that the future is going to possess you too. You just don’t live once, a rotten eighty years. I never conceive why people want to be modern all the time. Being modern really means only now. There is only one instant of time. – from the transcript of an interview dated 1968 in Conversations with Robertson Davies.

The word “redemption” reminds me of that road designed by the Romans, which was apparently working just fine – long after the Empire that had caused it to be built disappeared.

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There is a special meaning to the word mushi [虫] in Japanese, the nuances of which are lost in its common English translation of “insect” or “bug.” I think it would be most straightforward to quote directly an excerpt from an article called Mushi ga ii [虫がいい] from am insightful book entitled Nihongo Omote to Ura [日本語 表と裏] written by Morimoto Tetsurou [森本哲郎]. Below is my translation:

The Japanese characterize such mysteries of the heart as mushi. The heart is what one desires, what one thinks and what one feels. Nevertheless, there are times when the heart does not work the way one would like it to. In other words, there is another heart within one’s heart. The Japanese call that “second soul” mushi. It is believed that, of the two, mushi is by far closer to the depth of one’s being. The reason for it is that when one loses consciousness and when one’s breathing weakens, the Japanese call that condition “the breath of mushi.” The breath of mushi means that only the mushi within one’s body is left to do the breathing. In other words, mushi is the last thing that supports one’s life. In that sense, the Japanese concept of mushi is close to Freud’s libido.

In addition to “the breath of mushi” [虫の息], Morimoto provided other examples of Japanese idioms that illustrate the Japanese concept of mushi. For example, “mushi’s notification” [虫の知らせ] means a gut feeling for something inauspicious.”Where mushi lives is bad” [虫の居所が悪い] means you are in a bad mood. “The mushi in one’s stomach cannot be suppressed” [腹の虫が収まらない] means you are out of control with your anger. “Fusagi no muishi” [鬱ぎの虫] means a fit of blues.

Mushi clearly means more than just “insect” or “bug.”

The reason is I mentioned the above is that recently I read some additional information on this subject, so I am just posting my questions here to see if anyone can point me to more relevant sources that may lead to an answer -

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The entire second quarter at work was crazily busy, but recently I finally got more time to rest and recharge. Some part of my brain was yearning for period drama plus some sort of supernatural detective story (summer is traditionally the season for supernatural thrillers in Japan), so I went down to a bookstore and swept off the entire Kyōgokudō series (京極堂シリーズ) by Kyōgoku Natsuhiko (京極夏彦), of which Mouryou no Hako (魍魎の匣) was the second book. I have been curious to find out more about the onmyouji-detective character Chūzenji Akihiko (中禅寺秋彦) ever since I watched Madhouse’s excellent anime adaptation of Mouryou no Hako.

Mouryou no Hako

Anyway, I wish they had put some sort of health warnings on the novel covers – the stories are not only lengthy (they are thick as dictionaries) but also highly addictive (you just can’t bring yourself to put them down); they can cause considerable eye strain and destroy your sleep pattern. But I am glad that I read them – it has been ages since I got sucked into detective thrillers, not since Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum which I read back in university, I think. The Kyōgokudō novels are full of interesting ideas, which will take some time for my brain to properly sort them out. The stories themselves are like creepy kaidan tales from the Edo period, beefed up with logic in the style of Sherlock Holmes, and completed with psychological analysis of the Jungian school. The only thing I wish to say for now is that it became apparent to me that there is a distinct difference between horror (ホラー) and kaidan (怪談). Horror is creepy and the visual presentation often aims to turn your stomach – think the horror manga of Umezu Kazuo (楳図 かずお); but kaidan is always both creepy and beautiful in some dangerously attractive and eerie sense, or ayashii [妖しい]. I think an example of this would be Mononoke.

The Meaning of Ayashii

There are many words for “creepy” in Japanese and ayashii is one of them. If you look at the kanji 妖, it is comprised of 女 “woman” and 夭 “premature demise” – in other words, the premature demise of a woman makes for something creepy. I would like to stress that “creepy” is not really a good translation of the word ayashii. Ayashii refers to something creepy that is also at the same time enchantingly and bewitching attractive.

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A few months ago, I was scouted by a talent agency. It was during lunchtime in the office district. I went out to buy lunch and put on my MP3 player to listen to some language learning podcast as usual. Suddenly a man who looked as though he had already followed me for some distance touched me in the shoulder (because I did not hear not him) and introduced himself as a talent manager. After apologizing profusely, he gave me his business card and asked for my number. At first I thought this might be some sort of scam but he seemed to say nothing too exceedingly flattering about me (as I would expect from a scam). I gave him my business card.

He called several times afterwards to persuade me to take comp photos and sign up for a contract with his agency. After thinking about the consequences this may bring, I turned it down – mainly because of all the conflicts I can foresee with my existing career, but more importantly I think I have never been blessed with what the Chinese call tao hua yun [桃花運] to be successful in the entertainment industry.

Tao hua means “peach blossom” and yun means “luck”. On a mild scale, people with tao hua yun are well-liked wherever they go, especially by the opposite sex. This is quite irrespective of how good or bad they are or how they treat others. On the extreme end, people with tao hua yun are like sex magnets. A man who is well-endowed tao hua yun would inspire women to want to have his babies or something from the first moment they see him. Chinese astrologers traditionally see tao hua yun as a negative quality because of all the irrational impulses it might bring to disturb society’s order, but in modern times they seem to have come to regard this as a positive quality for popstars, musicians and the like to have, because tao hua yun may be a contributing factor to gaining adoring fans. On a tangential note, tao hua jie [桃花劫] describes the sort of love that leaves you ruined, typically in being fleeced of your life’s savings or being left with a mountain of debts. I believe the English word “lovefraud” which I saw coined here would be a close equivalent.

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I have always thought that the word 苦笑 [kushou] means (by dictionary definition and popular usage):

To smile at something that is bitter to you and look bitter while you smile.

But after watching a dozen films by Ozu Yasujiro (not all in one go but stretched over the space of several years), I am beginning to think that there is another level of kushou. A more subtle kind perhaps. It is namely:

To smile at something that is bitter to you and not look bitter while you smile.

For some reason, I have only spotted that smile in Japanese films so far. You will know that smile instinctively once you have watched enough of them (whether they are directed by Ozu or not, for his influence is lasting and widespread). It is the Kodak smile that you usually only see in advertisements of toothpaste, shampoo, cosmetics or the like. If a shot of the smile were taken out of the context of the film, you might even be fooled into thinking that the smile was induced by joy. But that smile always appears in some tragic context.

The first time I saw it was in Tokyo Monogatari (1953). It was a scene where an old couple visits their daughter-in-law, Noriko. Their son had died some eight years ago and Noriko, by her own choice, never remarried. She keeps to her own way in a rather depressing flat and has a clerical job to support herself. Her in-laws say to her, “The world is full of not very nice things, is it not?” And she smiles and nods. That is the Kodak smile that I speak of. It struck me that although they are talking about how the world is not a very nice place, her smile seems to say otherwise, as though the world is not just a not very nice place after all and there is more to the world than just being not a very nice place, and what that “something more” may be is unspoken and can only be guessed at from her smile.

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There is a word that I always encourage people who are studying Chinese and Japanese to ask every native speaker they come across for a definition in his or her own words, and that word is 縁. 縁 is pronounced as yuan in Chinese and en or enishi in Japanese (for the purpose of this post I will refer to it as en since I will be mostly making references to Japanese works). Chances are, you will find that the individual you ask will often turn out to have his or her own definition ready at hand that go beyond the usual definitions found in dictionaries.

The short version of my own definition would be “meaningful chance,” whereas the long version would be:

Meaningful chance that tracks you down with military precision like a missile, across vast expanse of time and infinite space, in order to throw you into the ambit of a specific person or a thing, whom or which you may be either meeting for the first time, or meeting again against all odds, in order to facilitate a result that may or may not come about.

En is different from “fate” – which is known as 命運 [ming yun] in Chinese and 運命[unmei] in Japanese. Fate happens for a certainty. En is less decisive – it is only a precondition (or a set of preconditions) that has the potential to facilitate a certain result.

Note also that I say meaningful chance – it is not random chance for no discernible purpose. When people talk about en, it is always implied that there is some deeper purpose or meaning. What comes to you by virtue of en is always something that leaves a footprint in your life.

Perhaps I should illustrate this with more examples:

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Spatial and Temporal Space

In English, the phrase ‘time and space’ goes together. In Japanese, one word encompasses both the meaning of spatial space (ie. the distance between point A and B) and temporal space (ie. the duration between two points in time). That word is 間 [ma].

But ma also has secondary meaning, and it is ‘luck’. If you want to say that so-and-so is a lucky person, you can either use 運がいい [un ga ii] or 間がいい [ma ga ii]. (運 [Un] is the more frequently used word for ‘luck’.) Likewise, if you want to say that so-and-so is an unlucky person, you can use either 運が悪い [un ga warui] or 間が悪い [ma ga warui].

In other words, you may think of the relationship between un and ma as this: Luck is really about having the right amount of time and space in between.

When I first observed this relationship between un and ma many years ago when I was just beginning to learn Japanese, I was reminded of how the Chinese astrological concepts of 旺 [wang] and 煞 [sha] essentially echo the same idea:

A Chinese astrologer may tell you that a certain person/object ‘wang’ you. This is typically translated to mean that the person/object brings you good luck in your life. But I think another way of looking at it is that if that person/object is in the right slot in your life, then he/she/it will attract the other right pieces to fill in the remaining slots. In other words, your life will be enriched because all the pieces make room for each other and together they all fit.

A Chinese astrologer may also tell you that a certain person/object ’sha’ you. This is typically translated to mean that the person/object brings you misfortune in your life. Similarly, I think another way of looking at it is that if that person/object occupies a place in your life, then you can be sure that i) all the other pieces in your other slots will have be pushed out just to accommodate this person/object, or ii) that person/object repels the other pieces in your life from coming to you at all, or iii) the other pieces in your life will fall apart even if they do come to you. Chinese astrology sees this as a misfortune, because your life becomes poorer than what it could have been.

This approach is somewhat in reverse to the western astrology (or at least what I have seen of it), which sees a person’s life as separate domains of love, career, family etc that do not overflow to each other; Chinese astrology sees a human being’s life as one integrated whole. (more…)

Japanese sensibility perceives beauty in falling cherry petals, whereas Chinese sensibility perceives beauty in fallen flower petals.* To put it another way, the Japanese mind seems inclined to find beauty in the active act of destruction, whereas the Chinese mind seems inclined to find beauty in the passive act of coming upon what is already or partially destroyed. The words to describe these perceptions of beauty are known as 破壊の美 [hakai no bi] in Japanese and 滄桑美 [cang sang mei] in Chinese.

Hakai no Bi

There are many manifestations of hakai no bi. Hakai means ‘destruction’; bi means ‘beauty’. ‘Destruction’ in this sense not only includes active acts of violence but is also inclusive of a life force burning furiously towards its exhaustion. The fall of cherry petals, kamikaze deaths and anything to do with the writer Mishima Yukio (三島由紀夫) and his works are typical examples of hakai no bi.

One such manifestation of hakai no bi which I think is central to Japanese aesthetics is the concept of 潔い [isagiyoi]. Isagiyoi is a powerful concept in Japanese culture and though a typical dictionary would give its meaning in English as ‘graceful’, ‘manly’, ’sportsmanlike’, ‘noble’, ‘courageous’, ‘readily’, ‘with good grace’ etc , none of these is correct – or at least not quite. There is a peculiar meaning to this word which I would personally define as:

A ready resolution to relinquish or end the existence of something/oneself at an immaculate, pure or perfect condition, either before the onset of impurity or imperfection (when or should they set in), or at the first sign of such impurity or imperfection. It is a kind of self-determination to let go of or withdraw something/oneself in a dignified manner , without fear or hesitation, before the downhill, decay or dishonour sets in. At the extreme end, this resolution may border on madness and is prone to manifest itself in death or destruction.

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